


No One With Whom to Bargain

by She5los



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Also a brief Linhardt/Caspar mention, It's more about the emotions Hubert feels when he sees Ferdinand hurt, M/M, There are not-so-graphic depictions of injuries, Various side characters and Caspar mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21578770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/She5los/pseuds/She5los
Summary: The proper thing to do for an injured love, in the past, was to pray for them.  What can you do when the Goddess no longer exists?
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 7
Kudos: 127





	No One With Whom to Bargain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infidusfiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infidusfiles/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Edge of Loyalty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21218270) by [infidusfiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infidusfiles/pseuds/infidusfiles). 



> My friend Infi wrote a fic around the line, “We killed our gods, and as I watched you bleed out I had no one with whom to bargain for your life.” I wanted to write about Hubert realizing, viscerally and finally, that the Goddess is gone even when it's hard to handle.

"Honestly, Hubert, I'll be fine without my nursemaid!" Edelgard's words turned over and over in his head. She did, on occasion, need her space, but never when she was in actual danger. On the rare occasions of lockdown, Edelgard would snap at people she didn't know, guards or servants who were unlucky enough to be stuck in the same room as her, but Hubert couldn't remember her getting short with him that way.

Better to think of Edelgard's frustration than the other thing. He made a mental note to commission a beautifully bound copy -- in Bergliez colors, perhaps? -- of whatever the latest breakthrough article in crestology or medicine was. Three minutes of listening to Linhardt natter on would be enough.

And, anyway, what was a few minutes of boredom and a book in comparison to the life debt now owed the man?

Hubert's feet took him to Ferdinand's sickroom. His status had afforded him a private space, where he was now attended by Linhardt, looking cross in the exact same way he used to during the war: brow furrowed, face pale, occasionally muttering things like, "No, you bastard, you're going to  _ live _ " and "You wouldn't dare" under his breath. His slender hands moved all across Ferdinand’s now-bare torso and hips, but always returned to the gash where Ferdinand had been cut open.

Hubert couldn’t look at it. It may, perhaps, have been the first wound ever that Linhardt had found less horrifying than Hubert. Ferdinand was deathly pale, still, and was still being attended by Linhardt even though it was over two hours after the attack.

“What can I do?” Hubert asked, as if he knew anything at all about medicine.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Linhardt said without looking up. His expression didn’t change and Hubert couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “Tie his hair up for me? Anything that keeps it out of the way. He just has so  _ much  _ of it.”

Hubert obediently walked to Ferdinand’s bed and gently lifted the man’s head so he could gather all that golden hair. He twisted it all together (why did he not know how to braid? Why had he never been called on to braid hair in so many years with Edelgard?) and gently placed it on the bed, away from where Linhardt was working.

“Yes,  _ finally _ , you pathetic little sponge of an organ,” Linhardt whispered to himself, and then looked up at Hubert and said, in a more normal tone, “It isn’t bleeding anymore. Including internally. He’s very delicate right now, and will need to be under observation by someone with significant medical acumen. Go get the infirmary assistant, and then I--” here he yawned, as if for effect, “am going to go eat my weight in shepherd’s pie and sleep for a week.”

The infirmary was a short walk down the hall. Two people seemed to be taking stock of their supplies when Hubert walked in, but looked up and bowed slightly.

“Count Hevring has asked for the infirmary assistant,” he told them. He had no idea who was in charge of the infirmary; he didn’t spend his time there.

The younger-looking one nodded and said, “As Your Grace commands,” and followed him back to Ferdinand’s room, where Linhardt updated her on Ferdinand’s condition.

Hubert, no longer useful, pulled up a chair and sat next to Ferdinand’s bed. He took his lover’s hand and kissed it and automatically started on the old words of comfort: “Our Goddess, Mother of All, Lady of Peace, may Your will include my… dear… Ferdinand.” What was he  _ doing _ ? He had no business praying, not when the Goddess was dead and the Saints all too human.

He kissed Ferdinand’s hand again and looked down at the man on the bed, deathly pale from blood loss and sleeping soundly. There was no Goddess to shield him from his own human fragility. And Hubert, architect of so many deaths, was highly aware of how incredibly fragile humans were.

“Ferdinand, do not die,” he whispered instead. “It would destroy me.” And he kissed Ferdinand’s hand again and stroked his wavy hair.

.-._.-._.-._

After sitting vigil by Ferdinand’s bed and annoying the healer to no end, Hubert went to sleep well past midnight. He then made the mistake of showing up for his work, which he was obligated to do since it was his job and thousands of people relied on him to do it correctly.

He walked into Edelgard’s parlor and the Empress frowned at him and said, “You look like death.”

“A comforting thought,” he said as he bowed to her. “Good morning, Your Majesty. Have the new security measures troubled you at all?” Extra guards in her room usually made her sleep badly, so Hubert had worked on a system that was nearly as strong, but that put all the additional guards directly  _ outside  _ her room.

“I slept fine,” Edelgard said in her usual, direct way. “You look like the one who had trouble sleeping. Take the day off.”

That was certainly much more sudden and complete a dismissal than Hubert had expected. “Your Majesty?”

“Take the day off, Count Vestra.” Her voice softened and she added, “Take a few weeks if you need to. The two of us were never taught how to care for our humanity, so instead we shall have to learn it now.”

After a pause during which Hubert tried to collect his thoughts so he might stay by Her Majesty’s side, he gave up and bowed again. “By your grace I go to watch over Your loyal Prime Minister,” he said, and hoped it didn’t sound as pathetic on her ears as it did on his.

Apparently not, because she smiled and said, “You have my leave,” releasing him from her room, but not her service.

The facts of the matter were these: up until the War, the Goddess had been a supernatural presence that all were conscious of. A protector, something to give hope. The words and rituals of spiritual practice were known to small children; by the time he left Garreg Mach, Hubert could say many of the prayers by muscle memory alone. But the War had changed everything. There was no Goddess, and what non-deity there was had died. Saint Cethleann, Lady of Healing, was an ancient dragon in the shape of a sixteen-year-old girl who thought fishing rods were a nifty modern invention that saved you the trouble of swimming after the fish and catching them with your mouth.

Hubert had thought he had let go of the Goddess, of all religion, years ago. He thought he was satisfied with their new world, where human ability and dignity reigned above all else. He wondered now if perhaps the only reason he once thought that was that he had never been so deeply scared before.

He haunted Ferdinand’s sickroom for a week. He bargained with Empress Edelgard for time off, got told off by Linhardt (Linhardt!) for eating badly, and made arrangements for the Prime Minister to stay in his house, as if Ferdinand didn’t have people who could take perfectly good care of him. He learned to clean and pack wounds -- nasty business, but he’d dealt with worse substances for worse reasons -- and became altogether territorial over the man.

Ferdinand, for his part, slept for nearly two days solid and didn’t truly awake for the next three. Hubert sat by his side and answered his repeated complaints that his stomach hurt, his questions about where he was, and his assertions that he needed to go to work. He had been told by multiple sources that lack of focus and the inability to remember things was perfectly normal for such an injury, but he still fretted over the vacant look in Ferdinand’s eyes. Ferdinand was sharp and direct, spirited, and now, even when he was awake, he spoke as if he was asleep.

For his careful attention, Hubert did get the reward of seeing Ferdinand come into coherence.

“Mmn. Hubert? That you?” the groggy man in the bed asked him.

Hubert squeezed his hand and said, “Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Where are we?” Ferdinand asked with the same glazed look that had covered his eyes for the past three days.

“We’re in the Royal Palace, in your sickroom,” Hubert told him. He’d found that minimizing the number of details he gave kept Ferdinand from asking much stranger questions.

“Oh.” This satisfied him for several seconds, and then he asked, “Did he get anyone else?”

Hubert hadn’t heard that question yet. He looked down and Ferdinand was looking right at him. He looked exhausted. “The assassin,” Ferdinand clarified. “He didn’t reach Her Majesty, did he?”

Hubert smiled. “He did not,” he assured his lover. “You have nothing to fear.”

Ferdinand nodded and said, “Thank you for visiting. Is it like old times?”

“Well, Linhardt is your doctor,” Hubert pointed out, trying to seem nonchalant. “He seems to have done his best to change as little as possible.”

“Good man, Linhardt,” Ferdinand asserted. “Always comes through in a crunch. Oh, Goddess, can you ask him if he has anything better for the pain? I know I was nearly cut in half, but I would greatly prefer not to feel it so much.”

“It was difficult to gauge your pain when you were less coherent,” Hubert told him. “I will ensure he increases your dosage.”

Ferdinand nodded and closed his eyes, but he didn’t look peaceful. A few moments later, his eyes cracked open and he said, “It really is nice to see you. Did I say that? I do not think I said that.”

Hubert leaned down and kissed the man on the forehead. “As it is nice to see you,” he said. “I had worried I never would again.”

“I have too much work left to die now,” Ferdinand assured him. “It would be embarrassing, being Prime Minister for a scant few years and then dying without an heir. I could never allow that to happen.”

“Perhaps Linhardt gave you enough medication, after all,” Hubert joked. “You have your cause and effect all mixed up.”

Ferdinand grimaced and said, “That joke will be funny in… Oh, two weeks or so. For now, if you could fetch Linhardt…?”

“Immediately,” Hubert promised, and stood to fetch their friend.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! It's short, but I wanted to write it out. :)


End file.
